I read the CRO’s, I’m not trying to retread old territory. I didn’t see any quotes raised there for discussion indicating that others had maybe gone all the way before, which constitutes potential proof.
I appreciate you engaging on the level of the quotes and going so far as to explore context. Everything you said regarding your interpretation of Osho’s words against Richard’s makes sense. I still think the 10 Bulls of Zen raises reasonable doubt as to whether Richard was truly the first, but as you said, it’s a rather pointless debate. Actualism as a method was unique to him regardless.
My primary interest in exploring this was not to prove anything in particular but probe the doggedness with which people here seem to take everything Richard says as gospel. I am skeptical of any community I join and will probe for cracks and contradictions; it’s saved me from many cult-y, groupthink spiritual circles. One of the habits here I’ve noticed that’s consistent with other groups is the tendency to mimic the language of the “leader”. Some degree of that offers a helpful common language, but when everyone is saying the exact same thing over and over with little variance to indicate that they have arrived at an original thought, I am skeptical that people are parroting and paraphrasing without actually understanding experientially what they are discussing. Which is literally how religions form. So this led to some of my wariness.
This assumes I’m aligning with the perspective of the mainstream by doubting you guys but I doubt the mainstream too. I try to be skeptical about most things that feel pressingly important to me and explore them for myself (climate change has not been pressingly important; I recognize I hadn’t looked thoroughly into it when I commented before passing judgment and I’m looking forward to going through the exercise of developing my own informed perspective). I’m surprised you would disparage that tendency as that seems pretty core to the actualism method.
That being said, I’m here in good faith and obviously much of what Richard said resonates with me. Here is direct honesty: I am wary of manipulation, which most communities I’ve found seem rife with; I am exploring assertiveness after a lifetime of bending to other people’s beliefs; I hold identity surrounding my intelligence which adds excitement to debate, but also an agenda; and I feel hesitant to share this with all of you because of the first point, I’m still wary of the clarity of people here, and in admitting my own capacity for blindness I fear it will be used against me to discredit my perspective in future conversations.
And yes, my experience with actualism has been meh. I don’t think having a PCE as a reference point is as easy as Richard described, I think it’s really easy for the identity to forget and misinterpret the experience once it reactivates, and I think it’s very easy to misinterpret Richard’s teachings as suppression (even though he explicitly warns against it) because “returning to feeling good” is not remotely intuitive when you’ve felt like shit most of your life; suppression is a pretty common adaptation for returning to baseline. That said, I have found his instructions really helpful for ongoing self-monitoring and letting things go, both of which have produced clear results over time. It just seems a lot more difficult than everything makes it out to be.
There seem to be a lot of people not free here talking about freedom and I don’t want to be blind following the blind. I am trying to understand why it seems to click for a couple people but others like @claudiu seem to devoutly practice and study for years without becoming basically or actually free. Either there’s some context I’m missing, or the method isn’t bulletproof, or there must be some conditions (as in, the psyche must be ready in xyz way) to becoming free aren’t fully understood yet. I’ve seen some of that nuance emerge in discussions here regarding basic vs actual freedom, the guardian, etc, which Richard did not contend with when he developed actualism, but which have emerged in people like Geoffrey who have pursued freedom via his method.
I’m not done with the method and will continue applying it; it just feels excruciatingly slow, and I am hungry for change, so I am trying to ascertain as much as I can about what I am exploring to ensure I am not spinning my wheels. I probably still am, unconsciously, to some extent.